Chronic Confidence
Sessions
Build the skills your people leaders and employees need to navigate chronic illness at work today.
Chronic illness is already in your workforce. 30% of your employees are managing a chronic condition right now, often without telling anyone.
These sessions give people leaders and employees a shared framework, practical tools, and the confidence to have better conversations, make better decisions, and design work that actually functions.
Standalone or sequenced, these sessions are available for people leaders, employees with chronic conditions, whole-of-organisation groups, ERGs, and conference programs.
Chronic Illness is already at work, lets make it work for everyone.
SESSION: Organisation-Wide
Understanding Chronic Conditions at Work
Most organisations are operating with an incomplete picture of their workforce. Chronic illness is common, often invisible, and rarely disclosed.
This session introduces the Chronic Illness At Work Framework, giving your entire organisation a shared language for an experience that 30% of employees are navigating privately.
For employees with chronic conditions, it creates a workplace that responds with informed understanding rather than confusion or misinterpretation.
For people leaders, it builds a clearer picture of what is actually happening for their teams and why.
By shifting the narrative around illness at work, we move towards an empowering, collaborative, and professional environment where everyone can flourish.
SESSION: For People Leaders
Chronic Confidence For People Leaders
People leaders are the first point of contact when an employee discloses a chronic condition.
They manage workload, approve adjustments, and are responsible for performance, all at the same time, and most have never been given any tools for this.
80% of people leaders believed their direct reports' illness disclosure are genuine.
22% of people leaders felt they had adequate skills to manage people with chronic illness.
52% of employees with chronic conditions report being treated unfairly in the workplace.
Without the right skills, people leaders can experience Chronic Confusion—uncertainty about how to support employees, stress about getting workload delivered, and sometimes misinterpreting chronic illness as a performance issue.
This session provide leaders with the tools they need to build Chronic Confidence.
SESSION: For Employees
Building Chronic Confidence for Employees
Managing a chronic condition at work is a professional skill set that most employees have had to develop alone, without a framework, without language for it, and often while concealing how much effort it takes.
This session gives employees the tools to manage their capacity with clarity, navigate disclosure decisions with confidence, and design their work around what they can do. They leave with practical strategies for sustainable performance, and confidence conversations around disclosure, capacity and career growth.
SESSION: For Employees
Chronic Confident ERGs
These sessions complement existing organisational programs and are well suited to Employee Resource Groups including Women's Leadership, Disability Champions, and Health and Wellbeing networks, International Day of People with Disabilities programming, and disease-specific awareness days.
They work as standalone sessions or as part of a broader capability-building strategy.
CONFERENCE SESSIONS AND KEYNOTES
Expert Sessions for Conferences and Events
These sessions are built for professional audiences where attendees leave with a framework they can apply immediately in their own organisations.
Available as a conference breakout, facilitated workshop, or keynote delivered by Michelle Irving, founder of Chronic Illness At Work and Career and Chronic. Michelle brings proprietary research, named frameworks, and direct experience working with leaders and employees across industries.
Suitable for conferences focused on leadership, workforce strategy, women's health, and organisational capability.
